Microsoft Opens Nominations for Health Users Group Innovation Awards

It’s that time of year again for the members of the Microsoft Health Users Group (HUG) to submit nominations for the 15th annual Microsoft HUG Innovation Awards. This is a special opportunity to showcase how your customer or your own organization is using technology to improve patient care, reduce costs, streamline clinical and business processes and enable informed decisions. 2011 was an unprecedented year where we faced a number of challenges in the health industry and the Microsoft HUG awards are our opportunity to shine a light on the companies that addressed those challenges head-on.

• First Choice Home and Health Hospice for their use of Allscripts Mobile Homecare Suite from Allscripts Healthcare Solutions to enable remote workers to enter patient data while on home visits with Windows Phone 7.• Vermont Blueprint for Health for their use of Covisint DocSite, a web system build on Microsoft .NET technology, to combine a portal, health exchange, analytics, warehouse and electronic health records for improved patient data collection and interpretation.• MedStar Health and partner Get Real Consulting for a web-based personal health record eHealth2go geared toward minority and vulnerable diabetic patients in the Washington, D.C. area.• Providence Alaska Medical Center for their use of Microsoft Amalga UIS Modified Early Warning System (MEWS) to help proactively monitor early clinical signals among all inpatients.• OptumHealth for the OptumizeMe Windows Phone 7 application that enables users to create health and fitness challenges and track their progress.

We encourage hospitals, health systems, clinics, group practices, public health organizations and health plans to submit nominations that share how they developed and implemented a solution based on the latest Microsoft technology - either independently or with a technology partner. The award emphasizes the innovative application of software and the creation of new solution. We’re looking for companies that have really created a breakthrough in technology and have made a significant business impact using our technology and we’re looking forward to reading your stories.

Think you sound like a fit? Have a solution you’d like to share? Find out more about the award submissions and download the official entry form here. You can also read about our previous winners in this blog post.